Chapter 54 - 35: 50 Years of Cultivation, Heart Seal Soul Tempering

Chapter 54: Chapter 35: 50 Years of Cultivation, Heart Seal Soul Tempering

Cultivating the Qingxuan Scripture from the First Layer to the Second Layer only took a year or two, and even the slowest cultivators would only need four or five years at most. However, it took Li Yinsheng ten whole years just to advance the Heart Seal Scripture from the First Layer to the Second Layer. Of course, since he had been cultivating without rest, he estimated this ten-year duration by comparing it with the Cultivation growth of his Qingxuan Scripture.

"Cultivation Techniques practiced by Daoists are truly inhuman," Li Yinsheng could not help but complain. "I thought the True Blood Secret Scripture was slow enough, but I didn’t expect to meet its match."

Still, he had no reason to feel discouraged. Anyone who cultivated the Heart Seal Scripture would progress at this glacial pace, unless they possessed an extremely rare Root Device related to the Soul. According to Junior Martial Uncle Jiang, most Daoists in the temple would eventually stall at the Third Layer or Fourth Layer. Only a tiny minority could reach higher. As for her own progress, Li Yinsheng had asked several times, but she had never answered. He could only guess that her progress was subpar, and she felt too embarrassed to talk about it.

He wondered if Junior Martial Uncle Jiang was also at the Second Layer, just like he was right now. After making these baseless assumptions about his elder for a moment, Li Yinsheng dove back into his cultivation.

Time ceased to exist within the cave; seasons passed unnoticed.

An unknown number of years later, Li Yinsheng opened his eyes once more. He had mostly consumed the fifty years’ worth of rewards. The Heart Seal Scripture had only reached the Third Layer, and he was nowhere near the Fourth Layer. By his own estimate, he had only covered slightly more than half the distance through the Third Layer. This was somewhat within his expectations. After all, this wretched Cultivation Technique had taken him ten years just to progress from the First Layer to the Second Layer. Moving from the Second Layer to the Third Layer had cost him nearly another twenty years.

Even so, he could sense that his Soul and Divine Sense were completely different from before. A Daoist’s Soul, originally perfectly integrated and harmonious, had now become twice as condensed. He didn’t actually feel many obvious benefits from a denser Soul, but the changes to his Divine Sense truly surprised him. The Third Layer of the Heart Seal Scripture had increased the strength of his Divine Sense by at least twofold. He figured that if he unleashed his Divine Sense at full power right now, he could accurately sense almost every rustle of the wind and blade of grass across the entirety of Xuanzhen Peak. If he didn’t need such fine detail and just spread his Divine Sense out, the range would be far greater.

As for the Qingxuan Scripture, which had already reached the Eleventh Layer, fifty years of arduous cultivation had finally brought it to the Twelfth Layer, where he stabilized his foundation. However, the Twelfth Layer of the Qingxuan Scripture did not bring any new miraculous abilities. It lacked the miraculous effects of previous stages, such as widening the meridians and Dantian to boost Magical Power at the Third Layer, the birth of Clear Spirit Qi at the Sixth Layer, or the transformation of Clear Spirit Qi into Qingxuan Divine Light at the Ninth Layer.

Aside from another qualitative boost to his Magical Power, the only surprise from this breakthrough was that the volume and recovery speed of his Qingxuan Divine Light instantly tripled. Truthfully, this enhancement was quite significant. While the Qingxuan Divine Light was powerful, its small quantity and slow recovery had been major drawbacks, which were now rectified. However, compared to the qualitative transformations brought by the Sixth Layer and Ninth Layer, it felt somewhat underwhelming. Especially since Li Yinsheng frequently entered the Grotto Heaven for advanced cultivation, he never lacked time to recover his Qingxuan Divine Light anyway.

Then there was the True Blood Secret Scripture. He truly hadn’t expected that even with over one hundred and thirty years of foundational effort poured into this Cultivation Technique, he still hadn’t reached the Ninth Layer; in fact, he was still twenty or thirty percent short of completion. Although this technique only required the Eighth Layer to break through to Daoist, the difficulty of cultivating it was simply too high. It truly lived up to the Path of Blood Refining’s reputation for being notoriously slow, even among Body Cultivators.

The senior who had become a Daoist using the True Blood Secret Scripture also seemed to have stalled at the Ninth Layer, failing to reach the higher Tenth Layer. He could only conclude that the upper limit of the True Blood Secret Scripture was indeed much higher than that of the Qingxuan Scripture. Reaching the Tenth Layer might make it slightly superior to the Twelfth Layer of the Qingxuan Scripture. Yet, no matter how high the ceiling, it was only useful if one could actually cultivate to that point.

For example, the senior Daoist who had practiced the Qingxuan Scripture had not only solidly cultivated it to the Twelfth Layer, but also created numerous methods and insights for utilizing the Qingxuan Divine Light, which benefited Li Yinsheng immensely. Among these was a Magic Technique that, supported by profound Cultivation, further elevated the upper limits and the Washing Marrow and Cleansing Veins effects of the Qingxuan Divine Light. Naturally, with the Washing Marrow effects growing stronger, the accompanying pain would inevitably intensify as well. However, this method required the foundation of a Twelfth Layer Qingxuan Scripture Cultivation to use. Therefore, Li Yinsheng had never attempted it on his junior martial sister before.

"Hmm, I’ll cultivate for a while longer. Once the time is up and I head out, I can test it directly on my junior martial sister," Li Yinsheng muttered to himself as he sat cross-legged, looking up at the bright moon. He wouldn’t bother testing it on himself; using Qingxuan Divine Light for Washing Marrow and Cleansing Veins no longer had any effect on a Daoist’s body.